Hanging Out With A Three Year Old Great Grandson

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Preparing Our Parking Area For Asphalt

Our Boy Loving Watching The Digger

With Baba

6:51

It's just after 7:00, and I've been up since 6:20, waiting for the sky to lighten. The lake is perfectly calm, so I'm excited to get out on the water despite the gray, overcast sky and 56º. As I pulled into the yard, I noticed a "digger," as Rhys calls it, and a dump truck sitting out back, ready to excavate our parking area for asphalt. Rhys is so excited that he's sitting outside watching the guy begin.  

Kayak Morning

North

Long Point/Prendergast Point

Morning Heron

Prancing Heron

Monday began with an early coffee, and Rhys rose around 6:40, ready for bear. I then took a 50-minute paddle with, fortunately, a fairly light north wind. When I got back, everyone was up, and Rhys was playing with a new farm set Evie had set out the night before. He is amazingly good at playing on his own and doesn't seem to need adult attention or favor. By 9:30 we were hungry, so Tom volunteered to make scrambled eggs and toast. Rhys shoveled the eggs into his mouth, usually with a fork, occasionally with his hand. He's a good eater, at least of the things he likes.

Loving Books

Hat Man

Having Tom around has been great because he's so much more adept with computers and with putting things together, something I seem to lack more and more. First, Evie was given an amazing birdhouse for her birthday by her sister Claire. It has a camera inside that takes photos of the birds and sends them to your computer and Photos. Putting it together wasn't hard, but syncing the camera with the computer was difficult for me and easy for Tom, so we were done in half an hour and ordered a bird pole from Amazon, which arrives today. Yippee! Then we tackled a Skylight Digital Picture Frame, a gift to Evie and me from my Robert College students a year ago, which we never got to work. Tom figured out how to reset the password and connect it to our computer, and now photos from the past 60 years pop up on our frame. Two Yippees!

Loving His Nani

Meanwhile, Rhys played with his toys, including the new farm set, and took advantage of two grandmas willing to read to him whenever he got bored. He had lunch around 11:45 and went down for a two-hour nap at noon. We had a choice of chili or tuna and macaroni salad. After lunch, we were either on our devices or napping. By 3:00 Rhys was up and we wanted to do something, so we drove over to the Chautauqua Institution and browsed the bookstore because Mary wanted to get a sweatshirt for Tommy. Unfortunately, none were small enough, but Rhys talked Evie into buying a fire truck, so he was happy. We then drove down to the Bell Tower, where there's a playground made mostly of old tree trunks, and Rhys loved exploring the various apparatus.

Loving His New Fire Truck

Mary, Tom, And Evie

Playing At The CI Beach

Crossing The Swinging Bridge

Once he'd had enough, we drove home and relaxed with a glass of wine or two until 6:00, a nice way to end the afternoon. Earlier, Evie had made Turkish koftes, so Tom and I grilled them for about ten minutes and brought them inside for Evie to assemble into a Turkish Iskender kebab: pita, koftes, and tomato sauce, topped with yogurt, a family favorite. With corn on the cob, it was a feast. Rhys went to bed around 8:00, and we watched the first half of the NFL game before joining him. What a fun day.